The Bull from the Sea Paperback – July 10, 2001

Fascinating

I really enjoyed and loved the first book about Theseus, but the second book was a bit more hard to get through, actually until I reached the telling about the Amazons. I love how Mary Renault continuously rewriting the myths and gods to fit into an actual living and realistic stories, and how she uses many and correct scenes from the ancient Greek. I like that the gods are not envolved in that way as they manifests themselves as living objects, but instead are alive in the spirit of the people. She has a very fine and beautiful way to tell about the humans dedications to the gods, in which actually make them living in a way.However, as I said about her first book, her language is very.. hmm, not playful and a bit monotonous for my taste, but maybe this is something about the time the book was written in. Thats why the four stars only! I liked the story and the complexity of it, but the sadness is that the language style it sometimes makes the story a little boring. So be prepared! I wished the language was more poetic and beautiful in style, and that she had played more with adjectives. The story however, makes it worth reading, definetely! And it doesen't stop me for reading her other books.The next scheduled is her first book 'The Last of the Wine' from 1956, set in Athens during the Peloponnesian War; the narrator is a student of Socrates.

Nice First Edition, very. well packaged and sent with lots of cool stamps. Thanks for taking care.

the second of a pair of novels personalizing the life story of Theseus, the legendary founder of Athens, as told by the hero himself - read first The King Must Die, it strongly puts the reader into the world and mindset of pre-Classical Greece - the novel "unpacks" the myth of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth, and gives the tale of how it must have happened. The Bull From the Sea is the latter years of Theseus, how he founded the nation-state of Athens, made an Amazon his Queen, encountered the accursed Oedipus, lived as a pirate, and went to Hell and back - the ancient gods seem silly to us now, but once they were the guides and oracles of the progenitors of democracy, and they live again in the visions of these characters. I loved this duology, though Bull from the Sea is more elegiac - hey, a life has an arc, right? Worthy writing, good reading, evocative and spellbinding in a literate, immediate, and thoroughly compelling style.

Excellent book and writer. Renault knew so much and crammed so much of it into her series, for new readers or very scholarly mature readers there are loads of exciting and intertaing hours in side. The last of the wine, the Persian Boy and the mask of Apollo are excellent as well.

No d.j.

I am very impressed with all of Renault's writings, as capture the times about which they are written graphically.

“The Bull from the Sea” by Mary Renault, is the second Theseus book, beginning with ascension to the throne, until the end of his life. Through his relationship to Hippolyta, his consolidation of Attica, his marriage to Phaedra, his voyages, and battles he strives to be remembered as a hero. But, like many legends before him, his greatness also comes with tragedy.Like the first book, Mary Renault expertly crafts a plausible non-mythological narrative out of the myths of Theseus. The story is moving, and weaves the legend and myths that surrounded a mortal man.